US Strikes Three Iranian Tankers After IRGC Fires Missiles at Navy Warships

On Saturday, September 5, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships operating near the Strait of Hormuz. The missiles did not hit their targets. No American sailors were killed.

US Central Command struck back the same day. Three Iranian oil tankers were hit: the M/T Downy, off Kharg Island in the northern Persian Gulf; the M/T Stark 1, near the port of Jask on Iran's southeastern coast; and the M/T Kylo, in the Gulf of Oman. American forces permanently disabled the Downy and the Stark 1. The Kylo was destroyed.

CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper said the response was deliberate. "If you shoot at two of our warships, we will impose an even higher economic cost, taking out three of yours," he said in a statement.

US officials described the three tankers as part of a network used to fund the IRGC and its affiliates. None were commercial cargo tankers.

The exchange followed the first US strikes on Iranian government tankers on September 1, when two more Iranian tankers were disabled off Jask under the administration's new tanker-for-tanker policy. US forces had also struck Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in late August as military pressure around the strait continued to build.